People say that everything is bigger in Texas. An early scoring spurt by the Texas Longhorns gave UT a 34-11 lead with 6:49 remaining in the first half and resulted in a 68-64 loss for the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Although the Bulldogs have made wins out of double digit comebacks this season, no deficit had ever seemed larger than the margin in Dallas. Thousands of Texas fans (compared to only 450 Bulldog fans) were up and yelling proudly.
The writers and NCAA sideline officials on press row were writing the Dawgs off, and writing Texas in their brackets. It didn’t matter who shot the ball for the Longhorns in the first half, because it always seemed to touch the bottom of the net. On the other side, the Bulldogs could not find the basket in the first half of play.
“It wasn’t what Texas was doing, but we came out kind of nervous. We knew we had to come out and set the tone defensively, and we didn’t do that,” said
sophomore Timmy Bowers.
MSU head coach Rick Stansbury switched his team to a zone defense to slow down the Longhorns. “We had to find ways to change things. Then we made some shots; the energy shifted a bit; and they missed a few,” said Stansbury.
The Bulldogs trimmed the deficit to 12 by halftime, despite Texas shooting 66.7 percent inside and beyond the arc in the first half.
The Bulldogs were lingering when Longhorn forward Brian Boddicker made two consecutive three’s and found an open Deginald Erskine under the goal to extend the lead to 15.
“I felt he (Erskin) was the difference in the game. Not only what he did on the offensive end, but his defense was outstanding,” said Texas head coach Rick Barnes.
No doubt that Erskin came up big. He went 8-9 from the field to lead the Longhorns in scoring with 17. Boddicker’s 11 were unexpected, and very detrimental to the Dawgs as he sank all 3 shots from behind the arc, though he is only a 32 percent shooter from out there.
The Bulldogs did not give up, however. They began a 16-4 run at the 10 minute mark, and cut the lead to just 2 with 45 seconds left.
Texas guard Royal Ivey sank four all free throws to ice the game, and end the Bulldogs season.